Meeting Details

Licensing Committee
15 Aug 2018 - 09:30
Occurred
  • Documents
  • Attendance
  • Visitors
  • Declarations of Interests

Documents

Agenda

Public Items
1 Sederunt
2 Declaration of Group Decisions and Members Interests *
1.

In terms of Standing Order 20 and the Councillors' Code of Conduct there were no declarations from group leaders or spokespersons in regard to any prior decisions taken on how Members will vote on any item on the agenda or any declarations of Member's interests in respect of any item on the agenda.

 

3 Written Questions **
2.

The Committee noted that no written questions had been submitted.

 

3.

The Minute of the meeting of the Licensing Committee dated 16 May 2018 was submitted and approved.

 

4.

The Minute of the meeting of the Licensing Committee dated 27 June 2018 was submitted and approved.

 

Report by the Corporate Director (Corporate Services)

 

5.

A report by the Corporate Director (Corporate Services) invited the Committee to consider and approve, with or without amendment, the draft Communications Strategy and instruct the Head of Legal and Democratic Services to undertake consultation on this as set out in section 3.13 of the report and report back to the next Committee meeting.

 

During discussion of the item, Councillor Edwards asked whether the Council could provide an MOT test as part of the licence fee as he had been made aware of a few taxi drivers who had recently been stopped by the Police for not having an MOT.

 

In response, the Legal Services Manager (Litigation and Licensing) clarified that her understanding was that taxi/private hire vehicles are exempt from needing an MOT certificate if they have a taxi test certificate and it is part of the taxi licence criteria that they submit their vehicle to the Council's fleet services every 6 months for a taxi test.  The only exception to this, is if the car is also used privately, then the driver would be required to also hold an MOT test certificate for the car. She added that the Council’s Fleet services would provide an additional MOT test certificate at the same time as a taxi test certificate for a modest additional fee if the operator requested this but it was a decision for the operator whether or not they needed or wanted this from Fleet Services.

 

She further clarified that she understood that the police database only records information on whether or not a vehicle has an MOT certificate, however if a taxi/private hire driver is stopped, by producing their current Taxi Test Certificate, this should satisfy the Police regarding the MOT.

 

Following consideration the Committee agreed the to approve, without amendment, the draft Communications Strategy and for the Head of Legal and Democratic Services to undertake the consultation as set out in section 3.13 of the report and that a further report will be presented to the next meeting of the Committee.

7 Question Time ***

Consider any oral question on matters delegated to the Committee in terms of the Council's Scheme of Administration. 

 

6.
There were no questions raised.
Summary of Licensing Committee functions:

To deal with all aspects of the issue of licenses by Local Authorities as required by Government; to deal with matters of Licensing and registration not falling within the functions of any other Committee.

 

 

Private Items

Attendance

Name
No other member attendance information has been recorded for the meeting.
NameReason for Sending Apology
Councillor Ray McLean 
NameReason for Absence
No absentee information has been recorded for the meeting.

Declarations of Interests

Member NameItem Ref.DetailsNature of DeclarationAction
No declarations of interest have been entered for this meeting.

Visitors

Also in attendance at the above meeting was the Legal Services Manager (Litigation and Licensing).




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